1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to handheld terminals such as cordless telephones or wireless cellular telephones for sending and receiving signals by means of an antenna and a radio frequency signal processor such as a transmitter or a receiver.
2. State of the Art
Mobile or cellular telephones are becoming more common and popular with motorist whose businesses require them to be easily contacted during time periods when they are driving their vehicles, such as salesmen, doctors and other people who either spend much of their time driving or whose occupations frequently involve emergency situations.
There is much concern that frequent users of radio frequency telephones may be endangered by overexposure to radio frequency energy due to the fact that the handset of such telephones incorporates the antenna which transmits the amplified RF signals, and such antenna is in contact with or closely-spaced from the head of the user. It has alleged that the frequent use of such RF telephones may be responsible for the development of tumors and other medical problems by the users.
The present invention is concerned with improved handheld compact mobile telephone receivers on which the antenna portion or planar radiator portion is hingedly-attached to the speaker portion for deployment between compact folded position and unfolded use position. Compact mobile telephone receivers having hingedly-attached antenna portions are known in the art and reference is made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,014,346 and 5,170,173 for their disclosure of such devices. The handheld telephones of the cited patents are designed for compactness, and the planar radiator portion is attached at the bottom of the telephone, away from the speaker unit, so as to be foldable up over the input keypad for storage during periods of non-use, and to be unfoldable into position proximate the mouth or chin of the user during periods of transmission. Such devices are not designed to overcome or avoid the possible health dangers of overexposure to radio frequency energy posed by the proximity of the antenna of RF mobile telephones to frequent users of such telephones, nor do they inherently possess such advantages because the antennae of such compact telephones remain in close proximity to and aimed towards the head of the users when unfolded into use position.